If we (Little Rock) are going to be in the OVC, then I would love to see the OVC message board get going. We are going to have lots of questions about our new league.

With today's news, I'm hoping to find an active forum to jump into as well!

We (Little Rock) had a good run in the Sun Belt, but IMHO it was time to move on. I think we can develop some good rivalries in the OVC in time.

Jax State fan here.

We were in the OVC for about 20 years. I had two big issues with them.

First was that we were a geographic outlier and had no big rivals. You are more centrally located so that helps.

The other is that the league is more basketball focused than football. You don’t sponsor football so that definitely won’t be a problem. With Southern Indiana, you now have nine full members with five football. Supposedly a football D2 from St. Louis is moving up so that gets you up to 6/10. Maybe that will help stem the tide of people leaving.

I never liked having non-football members but that’s a way of life in FCS. I’d imagine you felt a little left out in the Sun Belt as it shifted to a football league. I wish you well.

I wonder if Delta State would be interested in an OVC bid, or if that is geographically too far away from the OVC footprint.

I have been watching this realignment knowing and waiting for USI to take the plunge (alum here with remembering talks of D-1 for awhile). If I were the OVC, the best 3 options to add if possible are Western Illinois, Arkansas Pine Bluff and East Tennessee State. All 3 have football (just a matter if they would like to move). All but Ark PB have soccer. You cover the football while boosting up soccer if more football defections. You could look at Lindenwood and UIndy for D-2 call ups that also have football. I have heard Lindenwood has kicked the tires. Indianapolis will be moving conferences soon as they are the farthest east in the GLVC and lost all rivalries (USI, Bellarmine, St. Joe’s, etc). They could just stay in the d-2 and move to GLIAC or G-MAC but this may best best chance and only chance to move up to D-1 if they want. If Chicago State can utilize the savings of travel that they have in the WAC to field better teams, maybe take them as a provisional member (5 years) to get competitive and add baseball and/or football (non-scholarship to start). OVC could possibly use it to benefit in recruiting the area as well.